In Search of the Perfect Investment

Stocks are dropping today. Pick up your favorites cheaply, e.g. Square, Nvidia, Take-Two Interactive, Netflix, Paypal, Alibaba, Apple, etc.

Resist the idea of panicking and selling good stuff just because they’re being caught in today’s panic downdraft.

My phone has rung off the hook this morning. “What’s happening?” Bad unemployment numbers? Sudden uncertainty about Tax Reform (which never had much hope anyway)?

CNBC reports “Dow opens down triple digits on a mixed bag of retail earnings.” That’s news we didn’t know. That retailers are doing awfully. Surprise to CNBC. Not to me. I know why: No one is in their stores. They’re empty.

I know. I went shopping last night at New York City’s premier Time Warner Center. The only shop with customers was Amazon’s Whole Foods.

When I go shopping, I imagine I’m a billionaire and can buy anything and everything my heart desires. I walked from Tumi, to Coach, to Cole Haan. I finally found a nice pair of glasses at a ritzy store called Morgenthal Frederics. Really classy. Only $1,795. (I don’t make this up.) They were made from the horn of some exotic animal. They looked a bit like the ones I was wearing:

My frames are called Chilling. They cost the grand sum of $15 from EyeBuyDirect.com.

That grand price of $15 includes lenses. I don’t make this up.

In short, stocks are on sale. Just don’t buy retailers.

More on the nasty scourge called phishing

This is phishing email I just received. I’m getting one of these every day. If I click on that site, I will be in big trouble.

Phishing emails often have links and/or attachments. Both links and attachments are lethal. The viruses and nasty software they infect you with will slow your computer down. They’ll infect your co-workers. And it’ll cost you money.

A friend nearly lost $1.6 million. Another friend nearly lost $28,000. Both because of phishing. Both bank transfers were caught by diligent employees at leading banks. Both banks have beefed up their eagle eyes.

Still, you can’t rely on banks. I have some more tips:

+ Training sessions for all employees on email menaces, including phishing and how to recognize it. There are companies that will come to your place and hold training sessions. At minimum forward this and yesterdays blog to your people.

+ Tell everyone to check their sender’s address. If it looks fishy — like not from the company it’s meant to be coming from — then it is fishy. For example, “Amazon” is sending you an email, but the sender’s address is something weird like HarryX435@thre.iz.

+ If it’s contains an attachment — even from your nearest and dearest — call and ask “Is the attachment OK?”

+ If you do end up on a web site that’s asking for passwords, credit card numbers, etc. etc. close out and call the company on the phone. Organizations like the IRS, Amazon, Visa, MasterCard, etc. don’t phish.

+ Run two identical computers. Keep backups of your working files on a flash drive. If one computer starts acting weird, switch to your other machine and give the busted machine to to someone who will check it out. You don’t want to keep running on an “iffy” machine.

I buy an iPhone 8 Plus

I went to our friendly neighborhood Apple store last night to buy an iPhone X. I walked out with a iPhone 8 Plus. I didn’t  like the iphone X for a bunch of strange reasons like this stupid black line at the bottom of its screens. You can’t get rid of the black line.

The black line is to remind to swipe up to get to the home screen. The black line is annoying. It gets in the way. I was hoping the keyboard on the iPhone X would be bigger than my old iPhone 6. My fingers are too fat. It isn’t. The iPhone 8 plus has a bigger keyboard.

Then, of course, there was the little old lady standing next to me in the store complaining that her iPhone X didn’t work the way her old iPhone 6 worked. Three Apple employees huddling over her iPhone X phone couldn’t solve her concerns. Their feeble response, “Something has changed on the iPhone X.” It’s not something. It’s a lot. Be wary.

My new iPhone 8 plus is big and fast. But it’s a real pain to set up. My tip: get someone intelligent (not me) to set yours up. Right now, two hours later, I can make and receive calls. And I can send emails and texts. And some of my favorite apps work.

But I’ve lost hundreds of emails and dozens of text messages. And my iPhone 8 plus still won’t pair with my Apple Watch.

Apple Pay is working fine. Surprise. Surprise.

Wonderful physics lesson

When dropped which hits the ground fastest — a heavy ball or a feather?

Galileo in the 15th century discovered that any object falling to earth, falls at the same speed. He figured a cannonball and a feather, if dropped from the same height, will touch the ground at the same time, absent of air.

He had difficulty explaining it for a long time. Four centuries later, with new technology, it’s been experimentally demonstrated.

Turn your sound up, open the attachment, watch full screen. Show it to your kids. This is great science.

Superior male logic

A woman caught her husband on the scale, sucking in his stomach. “That won’t help you, Joe, you know that, right?”

“Oh it helps a lot,” replied the husband, “It’s the only way I can see the numbers!”

Harry Newton, who is impressed with the number of world leaders who are smart enough to have recognized the power of flattery. They have also figured that the person who responds best to flattery is, of course, our grand leader.